WHO says scientists still unsure if coffee causes cancer

The World Health Organisation (WHO), on Wednesday, released a report stating that an extensive evaluation of coffee’s cancer-causing risk, which resulted in a reclassification, did not prove the beverage’s safety.

The report released in Berlin noted that the overall coffee drinking was evaluated as unclassifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans.

A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer.
This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes.

It said that the 23 scientists who made up the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO’s cancer agency, looked at over 1,000 human and animal studies.

WHO noted that some studies showed coffee had no effect on pancreatic, breast and prostate cancers; however, for 20 other cancers, the evidence was inconclusive.

It said that the experts also looked at mate and very hot beverages overall.

The 23 scientists said that during their studies they looked at research participants’ coffee drinking habits over a number of years and whether they developed cancer.

IARC Director, Christopher Wild, sad that majority of the studies did not distinguish between different ways of preparing or different kinds of coffee.

He, however, said that although data for coffee remained inconclusive, but it was inconclusive weather drinking very hot beverages probably causes cancer of the oesophagus in humans.

“Worldwide oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common cause of cancer.

“It is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible,” he said.